Pages

Saturday, 17 January 2009

No Idea

It's just after eight in the morning and I'm on a train from Birmingham Moor Street out to Kidderminster where I'm due to collect a Golf from a company on the outskirts of the town.

A young guy two rows forward is filling the crowded carriage with an incessant 'tish tish tish' from his headphones. He is wearing a zipped up green jacket and has the smart haircut and clean shaven face of an office worker. I can never figure out whether people like him realise that an emasculated but unignorable version of their music is spilling out into the air around them.

We approach Snow Hill and he gets up and stands by the doors. I surreptitiously study his face, looking for some sign of a smug secret thought that says 'yes I know, but I also know that you're all too polite to say anything,' and then I will be free to dislike him to my heart's content.

He looks straight ahead and then screws his eyes shut then opens them again, like a nervous twitch in slow motion. We pull into the station and he gets off along with a throng of other morning commuters. He walks leaning forward slightly and with his shoulders hunched, as if he has been caught out in the rain.

It occurs to me that I don't want to hate him after all, particularly as I don't have to listen to him anymore.